


the one i was meant to find

by jemmasimmmons



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Friends to Lovers, Medieval AU, Mild Angst with a happy ending, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-10
Updated: 2018-09-10
Packaged: 2019-07-10 18:54:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15955421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jemmasimmmons/pseuds/jemmasimmmons
Summary: "Jemma’s breathing had caught in her throat the second he had touched her and now on the ground she exhales deeply, shaking down her skirts. When she looks up, she finds the squire still in front of her and manages a smile for him.‘Thank you.’He observes her, the way that one might observe a fine painting or tapestry hanging in a long gallery. He observes her as if she has just unlocked a feeling in him he didn’t know he possessed.And then he blinks.He grunts, making a hasty bow, before turning on his heel and leaving Jemma to stand alone in the middle of the empty courtyard."When Jemma's fortunate marriage takes her to the depths of the Yorkshire countryside, she finds more than she'd ever dreamed of in her friendship with Fitz, her husband's favourite squire. A medieval AU.





	the one i was meant to find

**Author's Note:**

> this is very loosely based off the real life romance of jacquetta and richard woodville, the parents of elizabeth woodville, who married king edward iv of england. obviously i envisage a rather happier ending for fs in this universe than they did!!
> 
> the title comes from 'rewrite the stars' from the greatest showman soundtrack. hope you enjoy this!!

 

 

**Yorkshire, 1456**

 

By the time the train of carts and horses makes its way into the castle courtyard, Jemma is long regretting insisting on riding into her new home independently.

Although she has always been a confident rider, she had never gone beyond her parents’ park before now and her back and her legs have been aching since Leeds, now many miles behind them. As she miserably steers her mare to follow her new husband’s horse into the yard, Jemma wishes, for the hundredth time that day, that she’d accepted his offer to have her carried home in a litter.

But she had been stubborn, and curious too. She’d wanted her first glimpse of his castle to be from the saddle, not from between the curtains of a littler. Now though, she is so tired that she barely glances up to take in her new home. As the procession comes to a stop in the courtyard, all she can see is grey stone, grey skies and the green and gold stitching of her husband’s coat of arms waving in the wind.

In front of her, her husband, the Duke, is helped down from his horse by two groomsmen and Jemma notices how heavily he has to lean on both of their shoulders to find his footing. His household had emerged from the castle as soon as they’d seen the horses coming, and now maids and squires are flooding the courtyard, taking boxes from carts and leading the horses to the stables. Still seated on her mare, Jemma is starting to feel more and more uncomfortable and out of place.

Her husband is making his way inside when he suddenly stops, as if finally remembering he does not just have himself to look out for anymore. He pulls a squire to his side and Jemma watches him murmur something in the boy’s ear before patting him on the shoulder and heading indoors.

The squire makes his way to her horse and lifts his arms up towards her.

‘My lady.’

The boy is about her own age: not particularly tall, nor especially broad. His hair is salt-and-pepper blonde and his eyes, when he looks up at her, are a deep blue. It takes Jemma a moment to realise what he is offering to do.

Sliding herself around in her saddle, she shimmies forwards until she is right on the edge. The squire moves closer too, so that when she pushes herself off, his hands latch onto her waist and he carefully lifts her down.

Jemma’s breathing had caught in her throat the second he had touched her and now on the ground she exhales deeply, shaking down her skirts. When she looks up, she finds the squire still in front of her and manages a smile for him.

‘Thank you.’

He observes her, the way that one might observe a fine painting or tapestry hanging in a long gallery. He observes her as if she has just unlocked a feeling in him he didn’t know he possessed.

And then he blinks.

He grunts, making a hasty bow, before turning on his heel and leaving Jemma to stand alone in the middle of the empty courtyard.

 

That evening her husband insists on a feast, to honour her first day as mistress of the house. Jemma sits with him at the head of the great hall with her plate in front of her, watching the dancing.

Her husband leans across to her, the silver in his beard glinting in the candlelight, and smiles benignly.

‘You ought to be dancing too, my dear.’

‘Oh, no,’ Jemma starts to protest with alarm, imagining how the two of them would look trying to join in the lively stepping of the dances to the tune of the reed pipe and lute.

But her husband has already turned, beckoning to a squire at one of the lower tables. As he approaches, Jemma realises it is the same boy who had lifted her down from her horse that afternoon. He avoids her gaze, and appears to be trying to swallow his last mouthful of supper with some haste.

‘This,’ her husband introduces her, ‘is Master Fitz. A fine lad, he’s been in my service since he was knee-high. He will dance with you, for as long as you like.’

He makes it sound like such a gracious offer that Jemma doesn’t know how to refuse.

Master Fitz offers her his hand rather awkwardly as she steps around the table to join him, and Jemma takes it equally so. His hands are calloused, as all squires’ are, and they are hot underneath her cool fingers. They take their place in the row of dancers and bow.

‘You know,’ Jemma says, red-faced as the music starts and Fitz starts to lead her in the hops and skips of the dance, ‘you don’t have to dance with me. Not if you don’t want to.’

‘Your husband asked me to,’ he says automatically. ‘So, I do.’

He spins her around and Jemma feels her skirts fly out, catching him on his ankles. Above her head, their hands clasp.

‘I could say that I am tired,’ she suggests, as they turn in a circle. ‘You could take me back to my table, and you could go back to your meal.’

 Master Fitz’s brow furrows, but before he can reply they are swapping partners with the couple beside them and Jemma finds herself dancing with a new squire. He bows his head to her respectfully but his hands are so slick with sweat that she is quite relieved when they swap back and it is Fitz in front of her again.

‘Why would you do that?’ he asks her. ‘Don’t you want to dance?’

Jemma shakes her head. ‘Not if I’m only dancing because my partner feels obligated.’

She watches, as Fitz’s gaze flicks up towards her husband, who is avidly watching the dancing, a beaming grin on his face.

‘But I _am_ obligated,’ he says. ‘My lady.’

He spins her again, but all of a sudden Jemma’s feet feel like lumps of lead and she loses the timing. Her cheeks flush as she struggles to get it back, but before she can the song finishes and the dance ends.

Master Fitz follows her as she steps out of the row of dancers. He holds out his hand to help her back to her table, but, flustered and embarrassed, Jemma pretends not to see it. She climbs the steps to the dais alone and spends the rest of the evening staring at the folds in her dress and avoiding looking down at the hall below.

 

The next morning, her husband has a meeting with his personal physician and Jemma finds herself being ushered out of their bedroom shortly after daybreak, with instructions to explore the castle.

‘You are mistress here now,’ her husband says with a slow wink. ‘Discover what lies in your new domain. No room is out of bounds to you, my dear, enjoy yourself.’

Jemma opens her mouth to protest, but before she can, the door is slammed shut in her face. She glares at it indignantly for a moment, then turns around and stomps off down the corridor.

Despite her husband’s assurances, Jemma soon finds that plenty of the castle’s rooms are out of bounds to her. The great hall is being swept as she stalks through it and although the servants chuckling over their brooms make hasty bows to her as she passes them, she doesn’t feel it would be appropriate to stay and watch. Her ladies are sorting linens in her privy chamber, and a gaggle of her husband’s squires are taking accounts in his. They all look up at her in surprise as she enters, and Jemma finds herself leaving the rooms as swiftly as she’d arrived.

In a fit of desperation, Jemma even tries the kitchens at the back of the castle, but it is clear from the moment she steps inside and sees the looks of horror on the cooks’ faces that she is unwelcome here too. She makes a feeble excuse of wanting an apple and scurries out the way she’d come as soon as the fruit is pressed into her hand.

What was the point, Jemma thinks sullenly as she idles down an upstairs corridor, of being a duchess with your own castle if you couldn’t _use_ any of it?

She takes the last bite of her apple and groans in frustration as the core jumps out from between her fingers. It bounces along the hallway and comes to rest in front of an intricately carved oak door that Jemma hasn’t seen before. Her spirits lift, and, pressing the apple core into an alcove in the wall, she pushes it open.

Once inside, Jemma gasps. The walls of the room are full of shelves, shelves stacked to the ceiling with books and parchment scrolls of all sizes. There is a great fire roaring in the grate and comfortable chairs drawn near to it with podiums dotted around the room. Jemma approaches the one nearest to her and finds a tiny book, with pages no bigger than her outstretched palm, lying open on it. The page it is open at has vibrantly coloured illumination around the boarders and, when Jemma leans in closer, she notices that real gold has been laced between the ink to make the pages gleam.

A sudden clatter makes her jump back from the podium and look around wildly, her heart thumping as though she has been caught doing something she shouldn’t. She exhales with relief when a tablecloth twitches and Master Fitz crawls out from underneath, the tips of his ears flushed pink and a book held tightly to his chest.

‘Oh. It’s you.’

‘It’s me,’ he agrees, before quickly adding: ‘my lady.’

The sight of him, brushing dust from his hose and doublet whilst trying to look as cool and collected as possible, warms him to Jemma slightly. She nods towards the book in his hand.

‘What were you reading?’

Fitz flushes an even deeper red as he attempts to hide the book under a stack of parchment. ‘I wasn’t…I have…’ He clears his throat, seemingly pulling himself together, then bows to her. ‘I’ll give you the room, my lady.’

And suddenly, perhaps because he is the first person that morning to offer, Jemma finds that she does not want him to leave at all.

‘No, wait!’

She crosses the room hurriedly and tugs the book out from where he is hidden at it. The illustrations, as well as the author’s name, are strikingly familiar to her and she looks up at him in delight.

‘Christine de Pizan? You can read French?’

The panic in Fitz’s eyes, followed by the way he opens and closes his mouth a few times, tells Jemma that he cannot.

‘Well, I was _trying_ to,’ he says defensively. ‘Before you interrupted me.’

Jemma knows that she could take this as impertinence, but since Fitz is apparently the only person in the castle willing to talk to her, she decides to ignore it.

‘Does my husband know you’re reading his books under the library tables?’ she asks, flicking through a few more pages whilst stealing cursory glances up at him.

Fitz snorts. ‘Of course, he does. Did you think I just wander freely about the home of a Duke, picking up whatever I like?’

With a slight shrug, Jemma moves to another bookshelf and airily picks another volume into her hands, hoping that he will follow her and explain further. When she hears Fitz’s footsteps approach behind her, she purses her lips into a small smile.

‘I didn’t have much education before I was in your husband’s service,’ he explains to her, ‘but he wants me to take over management of the estate and I can’t do that without knowing some basic reading and writing. So, he lets me use the library for a few hours a week, to practice.’

‘That’s kind of him,’ Jemma murmurs, as she reaches for a book on the shelf above her head.

Fitz nods, and stretches up to bring it down for her. ‘He’s a kind man,’ he says, softly, ‘your husband.’

He passes her the book, and Jemma feels her skin tingle as their fingers brush. She sucks in a deep breath, just as an idea comes to her.

‘You…you said you were trying to read French?’ she clarifies, glancing up at him.

‘Um, yes.’ Fitz looks a little sheepish as he scratches the back of his neck. ‘It’s quite difficult to learn, you know, when books like these are your only teachers…’

‘I can be your teacher,’ Jemma says boldly. When Fitz stares at her, she gives what she hopes comes across as a carefree shrug. ‘Why not? I can read French, and I can see that I am likely to have a lot of free time around here. The running of the castle is evidently in hand, and hardly needs my input as a mistress.’ She hesitates. ‘But I would like something in return.’

Fitz blinks, as though he has been slightly dazed by her barrage of words. ‘Like what?’

Ignoring the way her heart is hammering against her ribcage, Jemma looks up to meet his eye. ‘A companion,’ she says. ‘Someone to ride out with me, someone to show me the estate. I know I’ll hardly be allowed to go alone.’

Fitz chews at his bottom lip, and Jemma can tell that he is on the verge of agreeing.

‘I think,’ she says cautiously, ‘that we could be friends. Just as long as you never feel obliged to dance with me again.’

A flicker of a smile passes over Fitz’s face as he makes up his mind at last.

‘In which case,’ he says gallantly, stepping backwards and bending low to her, ‘I suppose I am at your service, my lady.’

‘Call me Jemma,’ Jemma corrects him, ‘please.’

Fitz looks at her, and the expression on his face reminds Jemma of when they had first met the afternoon before. It is as though her words have turned a key and opened something deep within his chest.

Then, he smiles properly.

‘Jemma,’ he repeats, and the word warms the room as much as the fire in the grate.

 

‘Fitz! Hurry up!’

Jemma laughs as the wind catches in her hair, whipping it against her face as she rides hard across the countryside.

Underneath her, her mare, apparently as grateful for the release as she is, responds readily to the press of Jemma’s heels to her flanks and speeds up. As they approach the peak of the hill, it feels to Jemma as though they are flying. Even the sound of Fitz’s voice, carried towards her on the wind, is not enough to bring her back down to earth.

‘You don’t think,’ he calls out, ‘that it might be a good idea if we slowed down instead? Just a little bit?’

Jemma shakes her head cheerfully as he catches her up, red-faced and puffing.

‘Not today!’ she declares. ‘Today, I want to get further from the castle than we’ve ever gone. Come on!’

She kicks her heels again and her horse takes off, cantering down the valley as Fitz is left behind once more. Jemma hears him swear, but then he clicks his tongue and his horse’s hoofbeats join with hers. They ride for a little while longer, before Jemma finally slows her mare to a stop under a large elm tree with a careful pull to the reins.

‘A tuft of grass,’ Fitz is saying as he dismounts. ‘Or a displaced root, that’s all it would take to send you flying at that speed.’ He pats Jemma’s horse on the nose. ‘And what am I supposed to do, once Luna here has flung you off her back and your broken bone is poking out through your leg, hmm?’

He tries to glare up at her, still seated above him on her saddle, but his scowl melts away as soon as the sunlight behind her touches his face. Jemma grins, and brings her leg around so she is sitting facing him.

‘Well,’ she teases, ‘I would hope that you’d be enough of a gentleman to carry me home.’

Her words have the desired effect; Fitz is stunned into silence and Jemma takes the opportunity to push herself off the saddle. He catches her, just as she knew he would, and sets her gently down to the ground. She is perfectly capable of dismounting herself, of course, especially away from the courtesies of the castle, but Fitz always comes to her anyway, so Jemma lets him.

It has been three months since their meeting in the library. Since then, she has given him enough French lessons to be half-way through _Le Livre de la Cité des Dames_ and he has taken her out on so many rides that the countryside around the castle is beginning to feel more and more like home to Jemma. It pleases her, to know that she had been correct in her initial assumption. Fitz hasn’t had to dance with her once since their first night, and now he is the closest friend Jemma has ever had.

If only she could ignore the way her heart jumped every time he put his hands on her waist.

Today, his hands seem to linger there for a moment as they hold one another’s gaze underneath the elm tree, and the look in Fitz’s eyes reminds Jemma that his proficiency in French and her local knowledge is not the only change they have experienced over the last few months.

It is Fitz who looks away first, clearing his throat and pulling away from her to fiddle with Luna’s reins. To hide the conflicting emotions Jemma knows must be evident in her face, she moves to examine the tree.

Leaning against the bark, she gazes out at the countryside surrounding them – the fields and the forest groves which seem to stretch endlessly all the way to the silhouetted purple hills on the horizon. When Fitz comes and stands beside her, she notices that he deliberately keeps a thumbs-length of space between their shoulders.

Ignoring the pang she feels deep in her chest, Jemma looks up at him.

‘Tell me where we are, then.’

Obediently, Fitz points out the local landmarks, naming all the hamlets and forests they can see. Jemma follows his finger and listens to the names, drinking in all the information he can give her. She feels a twinge of disappointment as she realises they have passed most of the villages before.

‘But we saw Osmotherley last week,’ she says with a sigh. ‘It feels like we’ve ridden _much_ further than we did that day; _how_ can see still see it?’

Fitz grimaces sympathetically. ‘I know it seems big when you look at it like this,’ he admits, ‘but really the county’s quite small.’ He glances down at her. ‘Especially when you compare it to the rest of the world.’

Jemma catches his eye and they share a smile, knowing that they are both thinking of the same thing: the brightly coloured map they had found in the library of the known world. They had traced routes from Yorkshire to Jerusalem, from Jerusalem to the Africas, and from there to the vast, mysterious lands of Cathay. It had felt like they were sharing some delicious secret, especially when their fingers had met across the parchment.

Drawing courage from the warmth of his smile, Jemma turns her body towards Fitz.

‘Surely there must be _something_ you haven’t shown me before?’

Fitz purses his lips, then seems to come to a decision. He grins and takes hold of her hand, drawing her out from under the shade of the elm tree and pointing into the distance.

‘See that clump of trees there?’

Jemma nods, trying to focus on the horizon rather than the warmth of his fingers.

‘Look a little to the left of them – not as far as the pond, but just in between.’

‘The small hill?’ Jemma asks.

‘That’s it.’ Fitz turns so that they are facing one another, a small smile dancing over his face. ‘That’s where my home is.’

Jemma stares at him. ‘But I thought your home was at the castle!’

_With me_ , she almost adds, but holds the words back at the last moment.

‘That’s where I live most of the time,’ Fitz acknowledges, ‘but I have a home of my own behind the hill. It’s nothing much, not really, just a small farm house. There’s a little garden too, with a vegetable patch, and I keep some chickens and a cow…’

He continues talking, describing his home, but Jemma is no longer listening. In her mind’s eye, she sees the cottage, with its thatched roof and plume of smoke rising up from the chimney. She sees the vegetable patch with the chickens clucking about the grass and she sees Fitz, his tunic pulled tight across his back as he leans forward to pluck a parsnip from the ground. The image is so clear to her that she can almost smell the soil, touch the curve of his spine.

She suppresses a shiver of delight.

‘It sounds wonderful.’

‘It’s nothing much,’ Fitz repeats with a shrug. ‘But it’s home.’

‘Did you inherit it? From your parents?’

Jemma glances up just in time to watch Fitz’s contented smile waver. He lets go of her hand, which he had been swinging affectionately between them as he spoke.

‘Uh, no,’ he says hesitantly, then ducks his head as if he wants to avoid having to meet her eye. ‘Your husband gave it to me, actually.’

‘Oh.’ It is all Jemma can manage to say.

When they are alone, they avoid talking about the Duke as much as they avoid talking about the way they feel about each other. Partly, Jemma knows that this is because what they are doing is dangerous and to speak about him would be to make the danger loom up between them like a phantom. But, as she stands next to Fitz beside the elm tree, she is forced by the unpleasant churning of guilt in her stomach to recognise another reason for it.

Her husband is a good man, old and self-indulgent, but good. He has been kind to her and to Fitz, who has been practically raised in his household, and to fall in love with each other, right under his nose, feels like the deepest kind of betrayal.

Jemma opens and closes her fists, her hand already feeling empty without Fitz’s to hold.

The sun has sunk low in the sky, bathing the valley in warm, pink light, without Jemma noticing and it comes as quite a surprise when Fitz clears his throat.

‘It’s getting late,’ he says quietly. ‘We ought to be getting back to the castle.’

Jemma notices the dejection in his tone as he reluctantly turns away from the view of his home to prepare the horses. Feeling her heart sink, she follows him. After deeming the horses sufficiently rested to carry them home, Fitz looks down to her.

‘Would you like me to help you up, my lady?’ he says softly.

Jemma isn’t quite sure what prompts her to do what she does next. Perhaps it is the residual sadness in his face and the way that it tugs at her insides, making her want to do whatever it took to take away his pain. Perhaps it is his use of her proper address, which he had first used as a way to tease her but had slowly become a way to express his affection.

Or, perhaps it is the lingering image of a cottage in her mind, sat snugly in the middle of the valley, where it would be possible for two people to live, and to love, freely.

‘Fitz,’ she says, his name like a prayer on her lips, and lifts herself up onto her tiptoes to kiss him.

He starts, as she had expected he would, his nose clashing with hers and his heart starting to beat faster beneath the cotton of his tunic – but all this happens in a moment, and then his hands are on her face, sliding backwards into her hair and knocking her headdress to the ground, and he is kissing her back like it is the last thing he will ever do.

Jemma closes her eyes and pulls him close to her, aware of nothing but their lips pressed together and Fitz’s arms around her. Her mind is no longer filled with thoughts of guilt or of how reckless they are being, all of that falls away, along with the rest of the world, until the two of them are the only real things left to exist.

It feels like a long time passes before they break apart, their foreheads coming to rest together as they catch their breath, hearts pounding. Jemma twists her finger into the loose thread at the collar of Fitz’s tunic and looks up at him. He meets her gaze and a look of golden understanding passes between them, as warm and welcome as the setting sun on their backs.

From now on, it is the two of them together, no matter what.

 

The next three months are the best of Jemma’s life so far.

It is a long summer that year, with bright warm days and balmy starry nights. In the castle gardens, flowers bloom in every corner, filling the stone walls of the grounds with fresh perfume and a rainbow of colour. Jemma insists on new cuttings being brought into the castle itself every day so that the smell of the flowers carries through the corridors, enveloping the whole of the house in the scent of summer.

The heat, however, does not agree with her husband, who takes to his bed during the day and leaves the running of the castle utterly up to his stewards. Since none of them ever take much notice of her, Jemma is delighted to find herself liberated enough to spend almost all of her waking hours with Fitz.

When the sun is at its peak in the sky, they retreat into the cool of the library with plates of bread, cheese and fruit. There, they sprawl on the stone floors reading, talking and biting into fat ripe peaches. Whenever Fitz leans across her to kiss the juice off her lips, Jemma feels a deep thrill rush down her spine.

They are not so careless to kiss often within the castle. Once the heat of the day is passed, they saddle up their horses and ride out to the elm tree where they allow themselves to be given up to a different kind of heat, the kind that makes Jemma’s pulse quicken with excitement.

In the evenings, her husband rises from his bed and takes his place at the table in the great hall, with Jemma on his left-hand side and Fitz on his right. It is during one of these feasts, when the Duke is happily tucking in to a plate of venison, that Jemma hears Fitz suck in a deep breath and nod towards the musicians in the corner.

As they strike up a familiar dancing rhythm, he descends the dais and bows low, holding out a hand to her in invitation. Jemma’s heart skips a beat, but, far from being suspicious, her husband appears delighted. He beams, red in the face, as she takes Fitz’s outstretched hand, and when they begin to dance, he starts to clap in time with the music. Jemma closes her eyes and ears to him and lets herself enjoy being held by Fitz in the middle of the great hall.

It is a wonderful summer, and at the height of it, it feels to Jemma like it will never end. But, like all summers, it does and when autumn comes to the castle so does a soft knock to her bedchamber door to tell her that her husband is dead.

 

Jemma knows that she ought to mourn for him, and in her own way, she does. She is sorry that he is dead, and the castle feels oddly empty without him, but she can’t mourn for him as she is expected to.

She had never truly loved him, not in the way her parents love each other. Not in the way that she loves Fitz. He had been more of a kindly uncle to her than anything else, petting her on the head and giving her trinkets every so often but otherwise happy to forget she was there. They had never been to each other what a husband and wife ought to be, Jemma thinks, as she slips her wedding ring off her finger and sets it down on her dressing table.

Even so, she is expected to grieve for him like a wife. After the burial in the family chapel, she is ushered back to her rooms by her ladies-in-waiting, all shrouded in black like a flock of crows. For the next few weeks, there she stays, cloistered in her few apartments as if she has been taken prisoner.

Despite the coolness of the September breeze, Jemma finds the air in her rooms stifling. She paces back and forth, however many times her ladies try and press her embroidery into her hands, until, finally, she has to battle with a rusty latch to throw open the window.

Breathing in the crisp, damp air, Jemma digs her fingernails into the windowsill. She hasn’t seen Fitz since the day of the funeral, and even then, that had only been a glimpse. She’d seen him over the head of the other squires, his face drawn but searching for her all the while. She’d been moving towards him, her feet drawn there by some invisible attraction, before a hand at her elbow had pulled her away.

Outside, the leaves on the trees are turning brown and gold, and Jemma finds herself thinking of the leaves on her and Fitz’s elm tree doing the same. There is a hollow ache inside her as she acknowledges how much she misses him and a gnawing worry as she wonders what has kept him from coming to her. Plenty of the other squires have, and the stewards too; they had come in their drones during the first few weeks to pay their respects to her husband’s memory and to assure her of their loyalty. Even if they hadn’t been able to be alone together, Jemma had hoped Fitz would come like they had.

She slithers down the cold stone wall until she is sitting on the floor and presses her hands to the tiled floor. Perhaps, she thinks dully, her husband’s death had brought back the guilt in him that had dissipated between them over the long summer months. Perhaps he did not _want_ to see her. He might even have left, a treacherous voice at the back of Jemma’s mind whispers, and gone back to his home behind the hill to be away from her.

Jemma quickly shakes off this thought with a firm shudder. No, he can’t have done that. That would be cruel, and the last thing Fitz was was cruel. Slowly, she pushes herself up off the floor and pads back through to her privy chamber, picking up her embroidery much to her ladies’ satisfaction.

He will come, Jemma promises herself, stabbing the linen with grim determination. She just has to be patient.

But as the weeks drag on and he doesn’t appear, the atmosphere in her rooms becomes almost unbearable. One morning, just before the break of dawn, Jemma wakes early with an insatiable need to be outside. Breathing lightly so as not to wake her ladies, she creeps out of bed and dresses herself, before tiptoeing out of her bed chamber to the door leading to the rest of the castle.

Fingers trembling with anticipation, Jemma fumbles with the bolt in the half-dark, unwilling to light a candle and alert anyone to her escape attempt. Finally, the latch gives, and she pulls open the door – to reveal a dark, hooded figure slumped against the wall opposite.

Jemma starts backwards, suppressing her urge to scream. Then, as her eyes grow accustomed to the dark and she can look closer, she blinks. Something about the profile of the snoring stranger is awfully familiar. Cautiously, she steps forwards.

‘Fitz?’

He doesn’t move. Reaching out a hand with a slight roll of her eyes, Jemma nudges him on the shoulder. With a sharp inhale, Fitz wakes, and starts to pull himself up into a sitting position, mumbling all the way.

‘Yes, Martha, I know, I know. I’m going, alright? I’m going, but if you’d just let me see her then we wouldn’t have to go through this palaver every single sunrise, and I _know_ -‘

‘Fitz,’ Jemma interrupts him, gently placing her hand back on his shoulder. ‘It’s _me_.’

All of a sudden, Fitz stops. He turns to her, and the look in his eyes is enough to make Jemma fall in love with him all over again.

‘Jemma,’ he breathes, before scrambling to his feet and helping her up too. ‘How are you…? I mean, are you alright? Are you feeling alright?’

He is regarding her with tender concern and, as much as it endears him to her, Jemma is a little confused by it. Surely, he can’t think that she was this grieved for her husband…

‘I’m fine, Fitz, truly.’ She smiles at him, hoping this will be reassuring. ‘But what on earth are you doing out here? Have you…’ She hesitates, taking in his thick cloak and the balled-up saddle bag he’d been resting his head on. ‘Have you been _sleeping_ out here?’

Fitz nods. ‘Every night,’ he says, and there is no embarrassment in his voice, ‘for the last two weeks.’

A wave of emotions rises up in Jemma’s chest – love, relief, and frustration. She shakes her head as she struggles to articulate them all in a single question, tears pricking behind her eyes.

‘Then why on earth have you never come _in_?’

Fitz looks up at her in surprise. ‘I’ve tried,’ he says hoarsely. ‘I’ve tried almost every single day, starting the day after the funeral. But your ladies told me you were grieving too much to see anyone, and I thought…’

He hesitates, and for a moment Jemma sees a flicker of shame cross his features.

‘I thought that maybe you felt guilty,’ he confesses, ‘about us. I thought that maybe you didn’t want to see me because of that, so I stopped going to your rooms. But when I heard that you’d seen some of the stewards, I came back and was told that you were now too _ill_ to see anybody. So, I told Lady Martha that I’d wait right here until you’d recovered.’ He holds out his hands helplessly, gesturing to the empty corridor. ‘And I have.’

A lump had appeared in Jemma’s throat as he’d been talking, and she has to swallow it back.

‘I was never ill, Fitz,’ she says in a whisper.

He looks relieved. ‘No?’

Jemma shakes her head. ‘No. And I had no idea you were waiting here either! If I had known, I…’ She trails off, unsure what she would have been brave enough to do. ‘I thought that _you_ might be feeling guilty about us and didn’t want to see _me_.’

‘That would never happen,’ Fitz says definitively, and Jemma feels relief again, untangling the knots in her stomach. ‘But I don’t understand why your head lady-in-waiting wouldn’t tell you I was here?’

A thought suddenly occurs to Jemma and she twists her lip. ‘Lady Martha might have guessed,’ she says slowly, glancing anxiously up at Fitz. ‘About us, I mean. In her own odd way, she might have been trying to protect me…’ She shifts her gaze to the floor, wincing even before she uses the word. ‘From an indiscretion.’

‘Oh.’ Jemma looks up in time to see Fitz’s throat bob. He meets her gaze with nervous anticipation, his hands agitating in front of him. ‘Do…do you think that you need protecting, then?’

Jemma frowns and reaches out, taking his hands into hers to stop him fidgeting. She turns them over and laces her fingers through his own. They fit together, just as they always have done.

Lifting her face up, she smiles. ‘I think that I’m perfectly capable of making my own decisions about that,’ she observes, ‘don’t you?’

The grin that Fitz gives her, all of his worry melting away as easily as frost on a spring morning, is almost enough to make Jemma forget all about her weeks of loneliness.

 

They creep down the servants’ staircase together, hands still tightly joined. The stable hands are still sleeping, light snoring coming from the rafters, so Fitz saddles their horses himself and Jemma clambers onto Luna’s back without her usual mounting block.

With a soft click of her tongue, she presses her heels to her mare’s silver flanks and they trot out of the stables, slowly at first until they reach the castle walls. Then Luna starts to gallop, and soon they are going so fast that the wind is whipping Jemma’s cheeks and tugging her hair out of its braid, and with Fitz riding alongside her, it feels once more like they could leave the ground behind them and soar into the sky.

When they reach their elm tree, its leaves a glorious russet red, Fitz jumps down from his saddle. He doesn’t even wait for her to push herself off; he reaches up and lifts her off Luna straight into his arms. He kisses her, with a fervency that tells Jemma all that she needs to know. He has missed her, just as much as she has missed him.

Fitz carries her over to the tree, where he lets her down gently. His hands cup her cheeks as he kisses her again and Jemma grasps at them. After being apart from him for so long, she wants him even closer than ever.

Fitz grins against her lips as she wraps her arms around his neck, pulling their bodies flush against each other. Jemma can feel his heart beat rapidly as she deepens the kiss, prising his mouth open with her tongue. She closes her eyes as they both sway on their feet, dizzy with their own desire.

‘I love you,’ she breathes.

‘I love you too,’ Fitz whispers back, and, when she gives him a slight nod, he begins to untie the laces of her bodice.

This, Jemma thinks afterwards as they lie together on a bed of leaves beneath a cloudless sky, this is what love should be.

 

The letter arrives as she is having breakfast in her privy chamber, huddled before the roaring fire. Winter makes the inside of the castle as cold as ice, and Jemma suppresses a small shiver as she takes the parchment from a lady-in-waiting who is not Lady Martha.

Lady Martha had been dismissed the very same morning Jemma had returned from her ride out with Fitz, and she had departed her chambers before lunch was served. After that, Jemma had slowly begun to assume her role as mistress of the castle for the very first time. She had asked for the mourning cloths in the galleries to be brought down and folded away, but left her husband’s coat of arms flying above the portcullis. She ate her dinner in the great hall with the squires and stewards and received visiting nobility. She rode out in the afternoons, always with Fitz by her side and always to their elm tree.

At first, she had been wondered whether the household would object to being brought out of mourning, but after a few days she had realised that they are just as relieved as she is. She is still their duchess, dowager though she may be now, and they seem delighted to have her back among them. It gives Jemma a private thrill to remember how out of place she had felt when she’d first arrived at the castle, and to compare that to the quiet confidence she feels being mistress here now.

It is a shame, then, that the arrival of this letter heralds the end of her brief reign.

Jemma breaks open the green and gold sealing wax and unfolds the parchment. There are only a few short lines written there, but even these are enough to make a wave of nausea rise within her, and she has to push her breakfast away quickly. Taking a deep breath, Jemma gets shakily to her feet and tucks the letter into the folds of her dress.

She needs to find Fitz. Now, she has two very important pieces of information to tell him.

She finds him in the stables, feeding Luna an apple. Her horse is already saddled, and it is clear from the way Fitz turns to her eagerly that he is anticipating an early morning ride.

‘My lady,’ he says with a twinkle in his eye meant just for her. ‘Are you ready?’

Glancing behind him at the stable hands mucking out, Jemma shakes her head almost shyly. ‘I’m not sure I want to ride today,’ she tells him. ‘Could we walk instead?’

Fitz looks a little confused at this, but passes Luna’s reins to a passing groom anyway.

‘Of course, we can.’

When he offers her his arm, Jemma rests her hand on it gratefully.

Instead of leaving the castle walls, she takes him into the grounds instead. There is a small, natural lake right at the boundary of the estate, and it is to this that Jemma leads them. On the way, she passes Fitz her letter to read. His forehead puckers as he takes it in.

‘But I thought your stepson preferred London to Yorkshire. From what I remember of him, it certainly suits him better.’

Jemma shakes her head. ‘I thought that too. But perhaps now that he’s the duke himself rather than just the heir, he wants to establish himself here.’ She nods towards the letter. ‘His wife seems to think they’ll be here within the fortnight.’

Fitz purses his lips together. ‘What will you do?’ he asks after a moment. ‘Will you stay here?’

‘I don’t know,’ Jemma murmurs, gazing upwards at the sky. It is a grey morning, and blackbirds flit from tree to tree. She pulls her furs closer around her, and Fitz’s grip on her arm tightens. ‘I can’t imagine the new duchess would be all that thrilled if I stayed here.’

Fitz snorts. ‘Given that you’re ten years younger and infinitely more beautiful than she is, no, I don’t think she would be.’

Jemma rolls her eyes, even as her cheeks warm. ‘You’ve never even seen her,’ she chides him. ‘How can you know that I’m more beautiful?’

‘I’m always going to think you’re more beautiful,’ Fitz says, so simply that it makes Jemma’s chest tighten with love for him.

They walk in silence for a while, until they reach the edge of the lake. A few ducks swim lazily on its surface, and Jemma can see the remnants of a deep frost covering the grass under the trees.

‘Will you go home?’ Fitz asks quietly. ‘To your parents, I mean.’

‘I don’t know,’ Jemma says again, her voice barely more than a whisper. ‘My parents…they’ll probably want me to get married again, but I…’

She trails off as her stomach turns again and she knows that they can’t talk about this anymore. Not before she has told him her other bit of news.

‘Fitz…’ Jemma sighs, and turns so that they are standing face to face. ‘There’s something I need to tell you. I’ve missed my course. Two, in fact.’

Fitz blinks. ‘What?’

‘I’m with child, Fitz,’ Jemma says softly. ‘And it’s yours.’

Fitz’s mouth falls open, and for one bizarre moment Jemma is reminded of a fish she’d once seen gawping at her from a riverbed. Her stomach does somersaults inside her as she waits, breathlessly, for him to say something.

Finally, Fitz closes his mouth and, with a sudden, sharp intake of breath, begins to look around him frantically. Jemma frowns as he starts to pat down his doublet.

‘Fitz? Have you lost something?’

‘Lost…? No, no, I haven’t…I just need- I don’t have…’ He shakes out his cloak before heaving a deep sigh and looking right up at her. ‘I know that it’s customary to give a lady a token when you make a proposal of marriage to her. But I don’t have anything on me, I’m afraid.’

It feels like all Jemma’s breath has been sucked out of her body.

‘Oh,’ she breathes.

She watches as Fitz licks his lips. Slowly, he steps forward and takes her gloved hands in his. ‘I don’t have a castle, Jemma,’ he says with a hesitant smile. ‘I don’t have a lake, or stables, or gardens. I’m not a duke. But what I do have – _everything_ that I have – I would give to you. Marry me, and I will share it all with you.’

Jemma’s heart is pounding hard against her chest.

 ‘Your house in the valley?’ she whispers, hardly daring to put the dream into words. ‘The goats and the chickens?’

Fitz gives a soft laugh and nods, dipping his forehead to rest it against hers. ‘Every single one,’ he promises, reaching up to tuck a loose strand of hair back behind her ear. ‘If that…if that’s what you want.’

Images pass through Jemma’s mind, as clear and colourful as the illuminations in the books they’d read together. She sees the house, its plume of smoke, its cosy fireplace and thatched roof. She sees the cow and the chickens, the vegetable patch, and Fitz’s familiar figure bending over it. But, this time, she sees herself standing beside him, with a smudge of dirt on her cheek and laughter on her lips.

She shakes her head as a single tear rolls down her cheek, knowing that she will never have the words to tell him how much she wants what he is offering. So, instead, she simply takes it.

Letting her eyes flutter shut, Jemma lifts herself forward to kiss him. She feels Fitz’s lips curve upwards into a smile as she presses kiss after kiss to them, wrapping her arms around his neck and holding on tight.

‘Yes,’ she whispers against his mouth as he begins to kiss her back. ‘Yes, yes, yes.’

 

‘Jemma? Are you home?’

With a soft laugh, Jemma lifts herself out of the chair she’d been sitting in beside the fire. Lying scattered about her are small scraps of linen, which she is attempting to stitch together to make baby clothes.

‘Of course, I am,’ she says happily. The word _home_ gives her more pleasure now that it means the farm house hidden in the valley than when it had meant the castle on the hill. ‘Where else would I be?’

From the doorway, Fitz flashes her a brief smile, before turning his attention back to the willow basket he is carrying through the door. Putting her needles and thread to one side, Jemma hastens to help him, but Fitz brushes her gently away. He grunts as he lifts the basket onto the wooden table in the kitchen. Curiously, Jemma steps forward.

‘What on _earth_ have you got in there?’

‘Dinner,’ Fitz says, lifting the fabric cover off the basket. ‘Or, at least, I hope it will be.’

Jemma peers into the basket and feels her heart lift with excitement to see the slab of lamb meat sitting next to the fresh loaf of bread.

‘Oh, it absolutely will be! Especially if we still have some parsley and garlic in the garden.’ Leaning across the table, she kisses him exuberantly on the cheek. ‘Thank you.’

Fitz flushes pink. ‘S’alright,’ he mumbles, turning his head to give her lips a chaste kiss. His hands come up to cradle her swelling stomach, rubbing his thumbs against her skirt. ‘I figured we all deserved a treat tonight, hmm?’

Jemma smiles against him, and covers his hands with her own, feeling their child move inside her.

 The midwife from the village has assured her she is very near her time now and Jemma is beginning to feel her patience strain. As wonderful as these last few months have been, now she is itching to hold her and Fitz’s child in her arms. She will not need to be confined as she would have done as a duchess; she can sit in the garden and breathe in the fresh spring air right up until the pains begin. She can have Fitz by her side before, during, and after, and once the baby is born, they can lie together and marvel at how far they have come.

With another smile, Jemma drops her head to rest it on Fitz’s shoulder.

‘Well,’ she murmurs, ‘I suppose I had better get on with it if we want to be eating tonight.’

Fitz hums in agreement and, kissing the tip of her nose, moves away from her to light the candles. ‘I suppose so. But not quite yet though.’

‘Oh?’ Jemma leans against the table to watch him, one hand resting on her belly. ‘And why not?’

Having lit all the candles, Fitz turns back to her. His grin glows softly in the golden light as he holds out his hand to her.

‘Will you dance,’ he asks her, his eyes shining, ‘my lady?’

Jemma rolls her eyes, but the playfulness in Fitz’s face is infectious and soon she is smiling too.

‘If you feel so obliged,’ she replies, and, taking his extended hand, she lets him lead her into the middle of the room and hold her in his arms.

As they move together, Fitz slowly raising his arm to twirl her gently, Jemma is reminded of the first evening they had danced in the castle’s great hall. How could she ever have known then the boy hastily finishing his mouthful before taking her hand would soon be everything she had ever wanted and more?

With one hand on her waist and the other cupping her cheek, Fitz kisses her as a husband kisses a wife, as an expectant father kisses the mother of his child. He kisses her, as a lover kisses another lover.

‘Not obliged,’ he murmurs against her lips. ‘I feel _honoured_.’

 

 


End file.
